All the way up to October

Remember back in June when I was saying we needed a little rain. Well we got it, in fact it started raining at the beginning of July and other than the odd day of sunshine it has continued right through to end of September. The hay here on Dogpound North started getting knocked down on the 17th of July and even taking advantage of every bit of sunshine, it was yesterday, October 6th when the last bale was rolled out. Best I can remember that is about as late as it ever been. We had a big reunion here at DPN for Rebecca and Lacey's cousins in mid-July and actually that was one of the sunny weekends here.

Once we wound up the reunion we followed Clayton and Lacey out to the Bighorn Dam for a few days of chilling by the riverside.

Alle and Sam just chillin'

Alle

Anderson Girls

Next stop was Shelly Roste's 60th birthday. Back in almost prehistoric days Shelly and I worked together on Shell's Party 4 wandering around Western Canada looking for oil and gas. Those were back in the good old days before the environmentalist's took over when oil and gas was actually a good thing to find.

Then a week or so later we headed up to Alliance for a reunion of another sort. Brenda, Derek, John, and Gina have been friends for a long time, I am thinking something like 34 years. They were all just kids when they met in Cochrane and have kept in touch every since. Derek had Brenda as a groomsman at his wedding and he gave Brenda away at ours. Long time readers will remember us heading to Vancouver Island and hiding out on John and Gina's place on the Nanaimo River.

L to R Derek, Maya, John, Gina, and Brenda

Late in August I was up to the Buffalo Coulee Ranch near Wainwright. My mother grew up near there and my cousins still call it home. The occasion was cousin Blair's wedding and he asked me to come on up and take a few pics. It was a great time and I took a few more than a more, hopefully some of them good and a few real good.

Blair and his bride Jacki

Jacki

That about covered our gallivanting around for the summer, we had a trip planned out to the Yaha Tinda but the week we were going it was raining, and snowing in the west country so we decided the wiser choice was sticking close to home. I got out a few times to do a little picturing as those who follow me on Facebook are probably more than aware of.

The Horses of Dogpound North

Our horses are fat and happy here at home and I haven't heard one complaint from them about not getting out to the mountains all summer.

What with Brenda's CRPS and my sore leg it has been a lazy summer of eating grass and standing around relaxing for the remuda here at Dogpound North. And probably be a pretty easy winter as I am thinking about not taking any ponies south this winter.

Well that about catches things up to the end of September, and October started off with a big event, my niece, Caron, and her guy Chris tied the knot, so the whole fam damily was down to Canmore for that event. It was a rainy dreary day until an hour or so before the ceremony when the clouds cleared and the sun came out. I have no doubt that brother Brent was responsible for getting the weather in line for his oldest daughters wedding day.

Oh remember back in July when I said we got done with our hay on October 6th, well today is October 7th and we have had snow all day so it was good timing.

Heading to the Farm

We are all hooked up and ready to roll north and east to the "farm"

I know it sounds like we live on a farm here at Dogpound North, but the "farm" for us has always been the place where my Grandfather and his parents homesteaded over 100 years ago. It is halfway between Vermilion and Wainwright in East Central Alberta. My Mom and her brother were born and raised there and my uncle and some of my cousins still call it home. Uncle Brent has a bunch of land up there and a couple of my cousins still live on his home place. Blair lives in the house on the Buffalo Creek Ranch and Mike has built his own new home just a half mile west of there up on a hill with a view of the whole country.

A view off of Mike's deck to the SE

A view from the same deck looking SW

We didn't really have an important agenda to keep, we were just up to have a look around and maybe give Mike's new digs the once over. We took my Mom along with us and drug our trailer with a couple of ponies along for the ride. Long term readers will remember there is some great riding up here on the Buffalo Creek ranch and we never miss the opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with this beautiful country. This is where I learned to love to ride and it is always refreshing to drop down the trail into the coulee and watch as the cell service drops off and the world gets left behind. Below the coulee hills nothing much has changed in 50 years, and I think if my kinfolk have anything to do with it nothing will for at least another 50. I hope that works out.

This is an old photo but it gives a good look at the bottom of the coulee

The coulee from Mike's deck

Heading down into the coulee

Another view from the top down into the coulee

Although we didn't plan it that way we did stumble into a Father's Day celebration at the farm and enjoyed visiting with family who came from farther away to celebrate with my Uncle Brent.

Mom and Uncle Brent

Uncle Brent is a pretty active guy and spent the morning before the party fixing fence and helping some beavers move on, off of his pasture. A good mornings work after all he is only 82 and in his family that is just a little bit on the long side of middle age.

My youngest Macnab relative, Braxton, first cousin, twice removed

And of course I got a chance to get my camera out and wander around the machinery yard. Some of this old equipment makes for great photo opportunities and your imagination can tell their stories.

An old horse drawn manure spreader

The head of a horse drawn hay mower

The steel wheels are neat but the rock caught my eye

Cousin Mike gave me strict directions that there were to be no photos of him on Facebook and being as how I always listen to my subjects I thought he might not mind an appearance on my little blog. I mean nobody reads this thing anyway.

But luckily I was able to use photoshop to remove the numbers across the bottom of the shot.

And you just knew I couldn't leave you all without another horse shot. Here is Brenda and Mike enjoying the view back into the coulee after scrambling up the hill.

Bittersweet

Is the only word I could think to describe our trip this weekend. It was time to take my brother and my father up to the cemetery at Auburndale and although we said goodbye a while ago it is still never nice to reopen old wounds. My grandparents and great grandparents were members of the community here and probably had the family plot for a good many years before any of them needed it but over time a cousin, Brent, and my Aunt Hazel have joined them there.

My two brothers and my Dad join Grandma and Grandpa here in their spot. Dad lost his father when he was only 11 years old and always said he had Grandpa Macnab as a father for 50 years so he wanted to have his some of his remains here in the Mount Auburn cemetery.

But enough of that if you want to read about each of them individually you can read my journal entries on Dad, Brent and Kelly by clicking on their names.

A trip up into the Buffalo Coulee country is always a kind of homecoming for me, I spent a lot of time in my childhood here and have a lot of great memories from this place. My cousins and I roamed the countryside here as kids and this is where I learned to ride, along with a lot of other skills that have come in handy over the years. Hey I meant building a fence, feeding cows, and picking rocks.

It is always great fun to get Mike and take Brenda out and share some of those childhood trails with her. It might be 45 years but most of them are still there and the Saskatoon bushes still have berries in the right season and a fellow can still get a toothpick from the Hawthorne’s as he rides by.

The coulee is still a bright green at this time of year and the grass is looking great. Lots of places where it is stirrup high and after a winter in the desert our ponies have come to appreciate it a little more.

After we had a last ride through the coulee and stowed away some of cousin Randy’s great Blueberry Pancakes we got loaded up and head away from the Buffalo Creek Ranch and down the road to the Alliance and the J4 owned by our friends the James Gang. Derek, Shawna, Casey, Jessica, and Justin, along with Grandma Jacqui. We had a great visit and a fine dinner there Sunday night.

The young folk had to head off to school the next morning so Brenda and I headed out with Derek to get one of his bulls loaded up. Our horses are not all that familiar with cattle but we did get the job done. When we got back to the house the kids were soon home from school and Derek and I took off again, this time with Jessica and Justin and their horses.

Part way through the afternoon Shawna broke the news to us that they were expecting 3 inches of rain overnight so once we got the horses cooled out we grabbed a sandwich and headed up out of the the Battle River valley and down the road to Dogpound North. Didn’t pull into our yard till after 11PM but we did get here before the rain. Barely, as it has rained all day today. Sure is good for the trees and the grass though.